Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics.pdf

A-Z 541keep your mouth shut?, where intonation and modal particles contribute to theidentification of the speech act in question.While indicative and subjunctive generally have fully developed systems, theimperative has only second person singular and plural forms, the other persons usuallybeing expressed by some other means (cf. Let’s go, Let them try). Other tenses or passiveforms cannot be formed from an imperative. Syntactic markers for imperatives forEnglish include initial position of the verb (Come here quick!) and special intonation, aswell as (generally) the omission of the subject. In many languages imperative forms arevery simple morphologically (typically identical to the verb root); verbs that are oftenused as commands (come, go) can have suppletive forms. For first person pluralimperative, adhortative; on third person imperatives, jussive.Except for modal auxiliaries, all verbs that have an animate subject seem to be able toform an imperative. Since they are used primarily as commands to act, only action verbsgenerally appear as imperatives.ReferencesDavies, E. 1986. The Engish imperatives. London.Hamblin, C. 1987. Imperatives. Oxford.modalityimperative transformationIn transformational grammar, the derivation of an imperative sentence from a deepstructure sentence. The ellipsis of the subject pronoun is described as a transformationaldeletion in the imperative transformation. For criticism, see work by Fries. In generativesemantics and speech act theory, every sentence is embedded in a matrix sentence witha performative verb. In the case of the imperative, this performative matrix clause is Icommand you. For example, I command you: you should be quiet. Through theapplication of several transformations, the imperative be quiet is derived.performative analysis for the difficulties of this approach.Referencesgenerative grammar, performative analysis